PHD SPECIALISATION
Marketing at INSEAD is more than a function or a discipline – it is a way of looking at the world through the eyes of customers in order to see opportunities for sustainable, profitable business growth in an ever-changing environment.
Introduction
Marketing research in the PhD programme involves a deep understanding of how consumers and firms interact on a number of dimensions. It is about understanding both the buyer and the consumer, covering the decision domains of: designing and delivering products and services; pricing; distribution; and promoting through personal (sales force management) and impersonal (mass communications like advertising or internet/online marketing) channels. The area also covers the strategic domain of resource allocation among product and market combinations.
The Marketing group at INSEAD has an exceptional reputation and is one of the schools most diverse. It attracts outstanding scholars from a wide variety of backgrounds, ranging from engineering to the social sciences. On the basis of publication in the top marketing journals over the last decade, INSEAD remains one of the world’s top schools for this field.
Faculty expertise and research interests
- Marketing strategy
- Marketing in virtual worlds
- Marketing and health
- Consumer behaviour
- Consumer learning
- Consumer decision making
The group, as a whole, is interested in exploring important questions using a range of theoretical lenses, such as economics, psychology and behavioural decision theory.
INSEAD provides an outstanding environment for marketing scholarship and intellectual diversity, with particular strengths in consumer behaviour and in analytical and empirical modelling. Our highly diverse and research-active faculty, and state-of-the-art behavioural lab in Paris provide the intellectual environment, support and synergy – as well as the infrastructure – necessary to obtain a PhD and become a distinguished scholar in the field.
Over the years, PhD graduates from the Marketing area have moved to leading schools throughout the world. This diaspora confirms our reputation as a global leader in the field.
What we’re looking for
As Marketing is a broad area that draws on a number of disciplines, we are looking for candidates with excellent academic backgrounds, regardless of subject area, which – when combined with rigorous training and collaboration with outstanding faculty – will allow students to create experiments that improve understanding of consumer behaviour, or to handle interesting and complex data sets. Research experience is not a must but would be an asset.
Current students come from backgrounds including: economics, social and cultural psychology, managerial and financial economics, cognitive and decision sciences, computer sciences and – of course – marketing. Some have joined INSEAD straight from an undergraduate degree or a masters, while others have extensive work or research experience.